An Interview with Guy Veryzer, Narrator of the Audio Book Version of AEQUANA

1. First off, Guy, I hand you a bouquet of flowers of your choice for doing such an excellent job of narrating my novel! Out of curiosity, what drew you to the book in the first place? What made you decide to audition?
It was very intriguing, AEquana as a title was evocative and mysterious, and the description of the story sounded subtle and scintillating! And different than books I have done so far.

 

2. You have a large repertoire of voices. My favorite, of course, is the one you gave to Buck. Are there any types of voices that are harder than others for you? Do female voices give you any trouble?

 

Buck was great, I love the character and his voice just came to me as I focused on him and your description of him, and was delighted when you said, it was just how you heard him in your head!

 

I really enjoyed Talon's deep. calm, confidant voice, and AEquana, who started out more icy, but warmed up a lot as her vulnerability was revealed, and her relationship with Talon warmed up too.

 

Finding the voices is an acting adventure, and can take a number of attempts to find the right one - And sometimes, I will start with one, and as I am reading forward, it will evolve to something different enough that I'll have to go back and redo the earlier lines.

Women's voices, are a shift of the machine, breath control and vocal placement all get shifted to a different gear, that's the best analogy I can use, but once in that gear, it's fine, the real challenger is sudden shifts back and forth from female dialogue to a male narrator and back again...Yikes, it's like driving an obstacle course!

 

3. Okay, I have to mention the lovemaking scenes. You got a kick out of me being embarrassed after hearing you narrate those pages. Do those scenes ever give you pause?

I really enjoyed your embarrassment, as an acknowledgment of my doing a good job. Because you seemed a bit worried about me doing it.

 

Reading love scenes, I am imagining both sides of the intimacy, it is like a rhythmic dance, that's a poetic way of describing it.
 

4. You told me during production that you prefer to read the material cold turkey, rather than ahead of time. Why?

I like the process of discovery, because it's how I read when reading something, hearing the voices in my head as I read a book, and I am translating it to audio, it's like the way simultaneous translators work at the UN. And when I work on films a lot of the stars don't want to know their lines or rehearse much in advance, they want to react fresh.

Not that I don't ever read ahead, and note the characters etc.

5. Out of curiosity, was there any part of AEQUANA that you liked the most? Was there a scene that forced you to stop to collect yourself before going on?

Hummm, don't want to be a spoiler here....Let's say, I love the sharpness of their first meeting, and Aequana's adventurous dash for freedom (is that spoiling?)

6. Do you keep notes as you read aloud? Like descriptive reminders as to which voice was for whom, etc.?

I do make notes, more and more, to keep track, but sometimes I still have to go back and listen to a character's voice, if they appear early on and then only come back much later...it can be hard to describe exactly the voice you gave them in words; grumpy older Pentagon General, southern...hummm? What part of the South, is he smart, nice, clipped and curt?

7. Now that I look back on it, because AEQUANA is generally told from the hero's point of view, I can see how having a male narrator enhanced the story. Do you have any difficulty when it's a woman's POV?

No problem from a woman's point of view, I just pop on a wig, heels and dress to get in the mood....just kidding. (Though it is a fun idea!) Really, I have so many close women friends, and have spent so much time talking and listening...Also I have written a lot, and writing from a woman's point of view is much harder than reading from a woman's point of view.

8. Finally, I have to ask, but what started you on the path of narrating books for ACX?

I have avidly listened to audiobooks for many years, and am very picky about narrators voices and styles, and I have always loved to read aloud, and am an actor, and had been working on submitting Narration samples to various audiobook publishers, including Audible, so I when was emailed about the creation of ACX, and watched a seminar about it on the SAG/AFTRA website, and I thought, WOW, this makes it easy for me to make it happen.(Not that there isn't a big learning curve, especially since you are recording the book as well as narrating.)

And I have been learning more and more all the time, and getting more wonderful projects from wonderful (and really lovely) authors, and my latest, booking is an author who heard me on an ACX book and contacted me for her bestselling Scottish romance series, and she got onto ACX so we could work together on their platform.

 

The process of collaborating with an author on taking these book to a new medium has been great, as with working with you on AEquana. Uploading chapters, and getting your responses was so delightful! I didn't want it to end! (And yousaid you didn't either!)

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AEquana is Now Available unabridged from Amazon, iTunes, and Audible .com